Saturday, December 5, 2009

Daily Sewing Book - Lemon Licorice slip dress

This is my first venture into the world of Japanese Pattern Books, an easy slip dress pattern (#G.02 from Daily Sewing Book) made up in our Italian 100% silk crepe de chine Lemon Licorice. I love the print and wanted to make it up for last Saturday's Christmas party - but as usual I left it to the absolute last minute and had to find something quick and easy to whip up in a day!!!!!

And this pattern was perfect for that - first thing Saturday morning I traced out the pattern onto our spot'n'cross paper, adding seam allowances and pivoting extra width and flare to the hem of the dress - slightly more in the front than back - similar to a dress I had. It was easy enough to work out what pattern pieces I needed from the diagrams and referenced back to Label Free's post on translated Japanese terms. I cut out the largest size (size 11) but although it still worked out in this style I'm sure that next time I'll make it a size smaller.

I then cut out the crepe de chine sandwiched between spot and cross paper - to stop the fabric from slipping off grain and to have the bias strips cut evenly. The dress took hardly anytime to sew up and I love wearing it, just perfect to wear during our hot and humid summer days and looks great worn with heels, as it does with my new favourite Lombok plaited strap sandals. Now i just have to work out what to make for the Tessuti Melbourne Christmas party and give myself a bit more time...wishful thinking :-)